


Proof of Life

by adavison



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Blood, Burning, Coping Techniques, Cutting, Depression, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Guilt, H/D Hurt!Fest 2020, Hopeful Ending, Intrusive Thoughts, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Slash, Scratching, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, Therapy, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:54:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26144431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adavison/pseuds/adavison
Summary: Back at Hogwarts for their eighth year, Draco notices that something is very wrong with Harry.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 40
Kudos: 350
Collections: H/D Hurt!Fest 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for H/D Hurt!Fest 2020
> 
> Prompt: # 32  
> When Harry comes back to life, after having been killed by Voldemort, he can feel almost nothing. It starts with a cut, then another and another. Every one deeper than before. Soon the physical pain isn't enough anymore, and he seeks out the only person that has ever made him feel anything — Draco Malfoy. 
> 
> Prompter: [EvAEleanor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvAEleanor/profile)
> 
> Thank you to the mods for running such a wonderful fest!
> 
> ***
> 
> Special thanks to my amazing alpha/beta team:  
> [meditationsinemergencies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meditationsinemergencies/profile), [Ms_SackvilleWest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ms_SackvilleWest/profile), [Drarrelie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drarrelie/profile)
> 
> ***
> 
> Hi, friends. 
> 
> As you saw in the tags, this fic deals with some pretty heavy topics, most notably, depression and self-harm. 
> 
> There are many ways that depression and self-harm can manifest. For the purposes of this story, I have used my own experiences with Clinical Depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and self-harm as well as coping techniques that I have learned in over ten years of therapy. 
> 
> This fic also has mentions of an extreme loss of appetite due to depression. While not necessarily an eating disorder, this may be triggering for some people.
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters belong to JKR and associated publishers. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended. The comments and opinions expressed by the original creator do not reflect the views of the author of this transformative work.

Harry hadn’t noticed it right away. 

If he were honest, he wasn’t quite sure how long he’d kept himself in the dark. By the time he’d realised what was going on, the days had all blurred together, so much so that he often could no longer tell which way was up. He’d hoped that after the war, once Voldemort had been defeated, he would have been given time to process everything that had happened. But that time never came.

One week. One week was the only real reprieve he got between the end of the battle and the beginning of the trials. If you could even call it a reprieve, as that one week was full of searching for survivors and burying the dead.

There were so many funerals. So many faces he would never see again in his lifetime. It had been a blur. The funerals and the grief all jumbled together into a large mass of other people’s emotions that threatened to overwhelm him.

Harry wasn’t quite sure anymore if the mourning would ever end. Most likely not. He knew that it would lessen over time, but the faces of the fallen would never truly leave him.

He saw them in his dreams at night that first week. Each and every one of them standing in a line and telling him one by one what their lives could have been if it hadn’t been for him. They lamented their lost days and railed against him, shouting: 

_ If only you had just perished along with your parents or any of the other numerous times Voldemort made an attempt on your life. If you’d been killed earlier on, if you’d just been left to rot in that cupboard under the stairs, maybe we would have had the opportunity to live. _

The odd thing was, he didn’t wake up in the mornings with a sense of dread or feeling as though he’d let everyone down. He’d fully expected to. It was a normal feeling for him. But the guilt was gone. Nowhere to be found. In its place was a big black hole of nothing.

That should have been his first clue.

Hermione had owled him and Ron pamphlets from her squib therapist’s office about the grieving process. It was her way of saying “I’m here. You’ve got this. I love you.” He’d glanced at them but hadn’t given their content much thought. 

Yes, that was it. Grief. He was grieving and people grieve in different ways. The feeling of nothingness was just part of the process. He was sure that once the trials and the rebuilding of Hogwarts got underway, having a purpose other than just surviving the next tear-stained funeral would put him to rights.

The trials came and went. Harry had been called to testify as a witness in several cases. Reluctantly, he sat in the witness box, a shade of his former self. He allowed everything to wash over him in waves, only interacting when directly addressed by a member of the Wizengamot. To ensure total honesty, the court placed him under Veritaserum each time. The prolonged exposure in such a short amount of time left him feeling slightly off-kilter for days. At least, he told himself it was the Veritaserum. 

The only people he spoke up for at the trials were Draco and Narcissa Malfoy. Harry had no ability and no desire to lie. After what both of them had done for him on the night of the final battle and before, he not only felt indebted to them but also recognised that they had both been placed in unimaginable circumstances and had simply done the best they could with the cards they had been dealt. In the end, both had done the right thing. The remaining Death Eaters and defendants could rot in Azkaban for all Harry cared.

The rest of his time was filled with efforts to rebuild the castle and visits to Andromeda Tonks and his baby godson, Teddy. Harry wasn’t quite sure how Andromeda was holding it together. She’d lost everything in the war. Absolutely everything. Except for Teddy. But somehow, she stood tall and soldiered on. She had to, she said. Teddy needed her, so she dealt with her grief in private during the few moments of reprieve Harry gave her or when Teddy was asleep in his crib.

Andromeda was lucky enough to have a support system. She had friends who made a point to check in with her frequently. She and Molly had started a support group for people who had lost children during the war. She was starting to reconnect with the family she had left. She had a purpose. It would be a rough road ahead, but she would be fine.

The days spent at Hogwarts seemed to fly by. He and a small group of older students slept in the Hufflepuff dormitories and woke every morning to work on repairing the castle. The damage was much more extensive than any of them had imagined. Members of the staff had been working together from day one to reinstate all of the enchantments—minus a few moving staircases and trick steps.

Their work was painstaking and slow. The towers took forever to rebuild and more than once they ran into trouble, but eventually, everything began to come together. The manual labour soothed his mind in a way that nothing else had been able to. It took just enough concentration that his mind went blissfully blank, and by the time he tumbled into bed each evening he was too exhausted to even dream.

At first, there had been a large crowd there to help rebuild the school. However, real-life slowly began to return to normal and people left to tend to their own work. Others left much sooner. Hermione was one of them.

She had tried. She’d really, really tried. But even setting foot on the grounds sent her into intense and terrifying panic attacks. Headmistress McGonagall had put her in touch with a squib who worked as a Muggle therapist and it seemed like the woman had really helped. Hermione’s original plan had been to return to Hogwarts and retake her final year, but after a while she announced she wasn’t ready and ended up sitting for her N.E.W.T.s over the summer.

Ron had stayed for a while, but George was still lost in grief—as were most of the Weasleys—and he felt that his time was better spent working with his brother in the joke shop. Before that final battle, all Ron had wanted to do was become an Auror. Now, however, he’d experienced enough pain. It was time to focus on healing and joy, he said earnestly.

Harry had expected it to be devastating to be physically separated from his best friends, the only other people in the world who knew exactly what he’d been through. But he was simply too busy to give it much thought—or at least, that was what he’d told himself.

As August drew to a close, he found himself at a bit of a loose end. Kingsley had pulled him aside during one of his many visits to Hogwarts that summer. The man had been kind and, as ever, very diplomatic. 

“Harry,” he’d asked, “I know that you mentioned a while ago that you hoped to become an Auror. Is that still the case?”

Of course, Harry had replied in the affirmative.

“My offer still stands. With all the work you did over the last two years, we would be happy to accept you into the program without your NEWTs, but is this really something that you want?”

Harry had just looked blankly at him. “Sure. That’s the next step, isn’t it? Defeat the Dark Lord, then serve and protect Wizarding Britain.”

“But do you  _ want _ it,” Kingsley had asked, “or are you just going into it because it’s what people expect of you?”

When Harry hadn’t been able to answer right away, Kingsley had smiled a bit sadly, then gripped him by the shoulders in a move that was so achingly like Sirius that he almost had to look away.

“Harry,” Kinglsey had said kindly, “you’ve been through hell and back and you haven’t taken a moment for yourself since. Why don’t you go back to school and finish your seventh year? Take the classes that interest you, enjoy life as a normal teenager for once. Spend time with your friends and skive off a class or two. Have some fun. Once you graduate, if you still want to become an Auror, let me know and we’ll get you started in the program. If not, I have a lot of contacts and would be happy to help set you up in any field that interests you.”

Harry had nodded and shaken his hand, but his mind felt as though it were in a freefall. Go back to school? Be a normal teenager? What the hell was a normal teenager? Harry had never felt normal a day in his life, and something told him that normal wasn’t about to happen any time soon.

He could have said ‘no’. He could have jumped straight into Auror training. Since he had access to both the Potters’ and Sirius’ vaults, he would never have to work a day in his life if he didn’t want to. However, he just wasn’t that type of person. He needed something to do. He needed a purpose. He needed to be able to work so hard that the thoughts in his brain receded to a low hum, one that was easily tuned out like white noise.

So there he was, early morning on the first of September, standing in front of the scarlet steam engine, desperately trying to ignore the clawing feeling of claustrophobia and the hundreds of eyes looking his way. He should have come much earlier and boarded the train before anyone else arrived. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to will away the thought. The Weasleys were coming to see Ginny off for her final year and they had insisted on seeing him too.

Even though he hadn’t gotten back together with Ginny after the final battle, the Weasleys still treated him like family. He appreciated it, he really did, but every interaction within the family was still tinged with grief. When Mrs Weasley wasn’t sobbing, she was hovering in whatever room her children had congregated. She stuffed them all with food and smothered everyone with physical affection.

Mr Weasley, on the other hand, mostly retreated to his shed, fidgeting with whatever small Muggle appliance he could get his hands on. On days when Harry struggled with having too much free time, he would wander out to the shed and let Mr Weasley show him how to rewire something or explain some magical modification he’d placed on the device.

They said their goodbyes on the platform. The smile he’d plastered onto his face seemed to fool or at least placate everyone. No one knew that the thought of stepping foot on the Hogwarts Express filled him with dread. It was silly, really. Nothing bad had ever happened on the train. The train ride to Scotland had always been a pleasant experience.

_ Except in third year with the Dementors, and Draco stomping on your face in sixth year. _

Harry had already been back to the school to help with the rebuilding. He knew that he could handle it. But just standing on the platform made his skin itch. He wanted to run his hands through his perpetually unruly hair and scratch at his scalp. He wanted to rip off his jumper—honestly, it was September, what on earth had possessed him to wear a jumper, even if it was lightweight—and scrape his hands up and down his arms. 

Instead, he flexed his hands. Mentally, he focused on what he hoped was the proper technique Hermione had told him about to fight off a panic attack—not that that’s what was happening. He didn’t have panic attacks. He’d seen several others having them over the summer and whatever it was that he was experiencing wasn’t like that. Still, reminding himself to breathe helped.

Just as Harry was about to force himself onto the train, he heard someone clear their throat beside him. Malfoy stood to his left, eyes cast down. The young man’s normally pale complexion was now tinged slightly pink, more so around the ears. He seemed softer, somehow. The boy who had been all sharp angles and edges when Harry first met him, and who had turned into a gaunt young man with haunted eyes last year, seemed to have blossomed over the summer. 

He was still tall and rather pointy, but gone was the permanent sneer and the haughty air. No trace of the slicked-back hair and posh tailored robes. No holier-than-thou attitude anymore either. Instead, he saw a young man who appeared shy and somewhat withdrawn, but not in the way he’d been over the last two years. In fact, he looked like he was sorry to have interrupted Harry in his thinking. Harry couldn’t put his finger on it, but he felt that something had fundamentally changed within Malfoy. When the young man opened his mouth, he wasn’t proven wrong.

“Potter,” Malfoy murmured, grey eyes flicking up to meet green. Eyes that before today Harry would have described as ice, were now a warm mercurial grey. “I know that what I am about to say in no way makes up for any of the awful things that I said or did over the last seven years, but I just wanted to tell you that…I am sorry. I am truly sorry for everything I put you through. 

“I do not expect you to forgive me, or even be willing to be in the same room with me ever again. And I am not just saying all of this because you…saved my life and,” he took a deep breath, looking as though he had to steel himself for the words about to exit his mouth, “and for speaking up for my mother and me at the trial. You did not have to do that. You did not have to do  _ any _ of that. But…thank you. I’m working on becoming a better person. I would like to leave the past in the past and maybe…if you are willing, start over.”

Harry stared at Malfoy for a long moment, utterly unsure of what to say or do. His hands twitched again. He needed to do something, anything, with them, so he did the first thing that came to mind. He reached out and offered his hand to Draco Malfoy.

A relieved, almost elated look flashed over Malfoy’s face before he smoothed his features and shook Harry’s hand. 

It should have been cathartic. This gesture was so reminiscent of their first real meeting, where Harry had rejected the boy’s offered hand of friendship. However, all Harry felt was the weight and warmth of Malfoy’s well-manicured hand. It was as though any emotional exchange he should have received from the grasping of palms were felt through a layer of thick woollen mittens. The sensation was deadened. Any feelings of thrill or revulsion that he would have expected never came. The handshake was just yet another thing happening around him. As though the world continued to turn on its axis, yet he himself was standing still.

He smiled a little and nodded at Malfoy, not knowing what to say. He was thankful when the blond turned and made his way onto the train, leaving him alone again.

Harry wasn’t usually a fan of solitude, at least not these days. When he was alone, it was easy for his thoughts to overwhelm him, memories of the final battle, of the Department of Mysteries, of the Dursleys flooding back. However, this time, he welcomed the solitude. There were too many people around. Too many prying eyes. So he hastily climbed onto the train and pulled his invisibility cloak out of his pocket and threw it around himself, vanishing from prying eyes.

It was difficult to manoeuvre through the throng of bodies, but he managed well enough. He’d had the foresight to shrink his trunk and place a featherlight charm on it before shoving it into his pocket that morning. 

All of the compartments had begun to fill up and he just couldn’t fathom entering one, dealing with the people inside. He could join Neville and Ginny, but he didn’t want to intrude on the new couple. They seemed well suited, and he wasn’t jealous. Harry thought that maybe he should be; he remembered Ron’s jealousy when Hermione invited Cormac to Slughorn’s Christmas Party in sixth year. Maybe he didn’t feel jealous because he had never loved her that way. Maybe it was because he was grieving and had to work so hard to muster up any emotion besides apathy. Whatever it was, he didn’t fancy being the third wheel. Well, fourth wheel. Undoubtedly, Luna would be sitting with them, which was fine. Luna was amazing, but what he longed for was silence. Nothingness. 

Harry headed for one of the loos at the back of the train, conjured an ‘Out of Order’ sign on the door, and slipped inside. A few flicks of his wand transfigured the toilet and lavatory into a plush bed. He collapsed onto the mattress and used the cloak he was still wrapped in as a blanket, before swallowing down a small vial of Dreamless Sleep that he had kept stashed for a rainy day.

He didn’t allow himself to think about the fact that he was headed back to Hogwarts alone. Or how bizarre it was for his arch-nemesis—well, former arch-nemesis—to try and make amends. He instantly pushed away the sudden realisation that he actually felt nothing, absolutely nothing, and probably had for some time. That thought scared him. But the potion hit his bloodstream and the gentle rocking of the train lulled him into a peaceful sleep.

***

Something was wrong with Potter. 

A few weeks into the autumn term, Draco sat at the eighth-year table in the Great Hall, eating breakfast and completely unable to keep from staring at the young man. Subconsciously, he had probably thought that something was amiss for a while, at least since his trial. 

The suspicion that something was wrong with Potter hadn’t registered straight away. At the beginning of the summer, Draco’s attention had been solely focused on the trial. But looking back, it was as if something significant had shifted within Potter. It had taken Draco this long to put his finger on it, but now, a few seats down the table from Potter, he knew what it was. It was his eyes. 

Potter’s intense green eyes used to remind him of the emeralds in the Slytherin hourglass. They had been so emotive, so expressive. Even when he was trying to conceal something, his eyes always gave everything away. 

Now, however, those eyes resembled nothing more than a stagnant pool covered in a thick film of algae. The spark had gone out of them. They no longer carried that haunted look about them, but they looked almost dead instead. Empty.

Others who didn’t know him well would never notice. Potter still smiled and laughed. He joked around with his classmates and friends. Merlin, he even started an eighth-year Quidditch team and scheduled scrimmage matches with the other house teams. If you didn’t look too closely, Potter seemed like his usual self. However, Draco had been watching him for several years and knew that something was amiss. That truth didn’t hit home until, almost absentmindedly, he had written a list of Potter’s odd behaviour.

After the trial, and being dealt his punishment—five years’ probation, community service upon graduation from Hogwarts, and an intensive Muggle Studies programme—Draco began making lists. Lists of everything he had done wrong. Lists of people he needed to make amends with. Lists of things he had once believed but that had been proven to be false. Every bigoted thought he had, questions for his Muggle Studies tutor, things he needed to do every day, every hour, every minute. He even began making lists of all the lists he needed to make. 

Eventually, it all became rather obsessive: where he’d once found making lists helpful and derived joy from ticking off all the little boxes, now the lists made him anxious. He quickly realised that something needed to change before he lost himself in a pit of nerves. Seventeen years of being taught to hate and feel superior, followed by a year living under the same roof as his mad aunt and the Dark Lord, had wreaked havoc on his mind. There had been many times in fifth and sixth year where he’d been tempted to throw it all away, to break free of those around him and the responsibilities they kept thrusting upon him, a small voice inside always insisting they were wrong.

He had taken the Mark and done what he had done because he feared for his life. For his parents’ lives. But he had also gone along with it all because he was a coward. He couldn’t imagine himself ever being as courageous as Potter and his friends. Standing up against everything and not giving a damn about the stakes. He had wished for so long to be like that. Each subsequent proof that he was not, nor would probably ever be, had been like a stunning spell to the chest. It had hurt and caused him to draw even further into himself. It was what had fueled the lists.

It was his tutor who had finally suggested that he speak to a Mind Healer. His mother had been absolutely horrified by the idea and was staunchly against it. 

“Malfoys don’t need something so pedestrian as a Mind Healer,” she had sniffed. “Malfoys simply pull themselves together and press on.”

In the end, it wasn’t up to her. Draco was of age and was—since his father was unlikely to leave Azkaban any time soon—Head of the Malfoy family. Not that the title meant much anymore. All of their lands and most of their holdings had been stripped from them. They’d only been left a small townhouse in London, with the Ministry setting aside a modest pension for him and his mother to live on until their respective probation and house arrest ended. But still, he was the Head of the family, whatever that meant now.

When he finally met with Delia, one of the Mind Healers at St Mungo’s, he was rather sceptical at first. The woman was no more than ten years his senior—how could someone so young possibly know what was going on in his head, let alone how to fix it? He had been afraid she would use Legilimency on him, something he had been subjected to repeatedly during the Dark Lord’s occupation of Malfoy Manor. But she hadn’t. She hadn’t used any magic at all, other than a quick spell to make a binding promise preventing her from repeating any of their conversations to anyone.

It felt so odd, trusting someone outside of himself, outside of his closest friends, with his innermost thoughts. Trust wasn’t something that came easily to him. It never had. Trust was something to be earned. The only people in his life he had trusted blindly were his parents, and Severus for a time, and look how well that turned out.

He didn’t want to open up, to flay his chest open and lay himself bare for some stranger to poke around at his insides and analyse him. But…he couldn’t go on as he had so far. He couldn’t continue living in a state of perpetual anxiety, shoulders hunched up, unable to quell his racing thoughts with lists any longer. It wasn’t sustainable. He needed something to change and, short of running away and starting a new life, this was the only way forward that he could see.

It hadn’t been easy. At first, he had seen Delia three times a week. Their sessions were long and gruelling. Draco felt utterly drained after each and had on more than one occasion been reduced to tears. But after a month he had started to feel lighter, more relaxed. More...normal.

He still made lists. He was like a bloody Ravenclaw or Granger, always with a list in hand. But the lists no longer ruled his life. He wasn’t making them obsessively. He limited himself to one “to do” list per day and a list of weekly goals. By the time the first of September rolled around, Draco was nervous, but he felt ready. He would still have weekly appointments with Delia via the Floo network, which his room at Hogwarts had luckily been connected to.

Due to their status as adults and non-traditional students, the returning “eighth-years” had been placed in a “house” all their own. For most, it was two to a room, but because Draco had been marked a Death Eater, almost everyone had refused to room with him. He preferred it this way though, living alone. It kept him from having to put up protection spells at night or worry that one of his sessions with Delia would be overheard. Sure, he would have liked to have roomed with one of his friends, but Blaise and Pansy had fucked off to Beauxbatons, Theo had sat his NEWTs from home and had supposedly been recruited by the Unspeakables, and Greg... Greg had taken Vincent’s death particularly hard. The last Draco had heard, Greg had gone to Romania and was doing grunt work at the dragon reserve.

It was a bit lonely in the castle, but it had been rather lonely for the last two years. Draco was used to it, or so he told himself. He wasn’t friendly with the Slytherins in the years below him, but this year wasn’t about friendship. It was about finishing his academic studies and setting himself up for a future career. If it weren’t for Lovegood, he would have been entirely alone.

Luna had found him sitting by himself on the train, hunched over a book. Without asking, she had flopped down in the seat across from him, pulled out one of the most ridiculous pairs of specs he had ever seen and started reading a copy of the Quibbler upside-down. He had just decided to ignore her completely when she began to tell him about Blibbering Humdingers or other such nonsense. He had been frustrated at first, a biting retort on the tip of his tongue, but then she met his eyes and smiled and every negative thought in his head withered on his lips.

This girl. This weird and wild girl who had spent weeks, no, months imprisoned in the cellar of his home somehow had no ill-will, no animosity towards him. Instead, she had sought him out when others had avoided him like the plague, actively tried to engage him in conversation and being friendly to him.

He didn’t quite know how to respond. Half of the words coming out of the girl’s mouth were absolutely preposterous, but she was oddly charming. Over the next few days and weeks, she would appear at his side, like a genie. He still hadn’t added much to their conversations, but she didn’t seem to mind and he learned rather quickly that even if the words coming from her mouth were odd and almost loony, at the heart of them he always found meaning. Sometimes, her words were even more profound than what Delia said. Luna’s presence was calming, reassuring, and he found that he rather liked the blonde.

And now here he sat in the dining hall, watching Potter play-act at being fine. Draco was worried. He could admit that now. A few weeks with Luna Lovegood and he suddenly found himself concerned about the person he had hated for so long. Well…“hated” was a strong word. It was only since his time with Delia that he had realised that he had never really hated Potter. Been jealous? Yes. Been angry? Yes. But hate…there were only two people he had ever truly hated. But the Dark Lord was dead now, and he was working hard to show himself more compassion.

He watched as Potter listened with false attentiveness and diligently cut up his steak, speared a piece onto his fork and moved it around but never brought it to his mouth. Draco found that he couldn’t quite look away from the plate of food being savagely cut apart and pushed around. 

In all the time he had observed Potter in the Great Hall—which was honestly more often than he cared to admit—he had never once seen the boy refuse food. True, there would be days like Quidditch matches where he would clearly be nervous and not eat much, but he was nearly as bad as Weasley. He constantly shovelled food into his mouth, often scooping second and third helpings onto his plate, especially this early in the term.

Draco had heard rumours of mistreatment—clues left in less than ambiguous phrases in one of Skeeter’s articles, an overheard conversation between Granger and Weasley—and he had to admit that at the start of most school years, Potter had been painfully thin. The boy didn’t seem underfed this year. To the contrary, he appeared to have put on a bit of muscle. The weight looked good on him—not that Draco would ever admit he found Potter good-looking—but this pretence of eating was concerning. And just like the show of being happy, no one else seemed to notice.

How was it that all these people, all of Potter's friends, didn’t notice? Gryffindors were notoriously oblivious, but honestly, if anyone would just open their eyes and pay attention to their surroundings, to anything other than themselves, they would see that something was clearly wrong with Harry.

Harry…

Had he just referred to Potter as Harry?

Fuck.

However, he reasoned, you just couldn’t go through a war together without thinking of them in a more familiar fashion, and over the years—though he had staunchly denied it to himself—his thoughts about Harry had become very…familiar.

Fighting off a blush, Draco shoved that thought to the back of his mind, pushed his plate away and left the Great Hall for the library. He had homework, after all. That would be a much better use of his time. Yes, he was concerned for Potter, but there was absolutely nothing he could do about that. He resolved to focus his attention elsewhere.

Ensconced at his favourite table in the library, his mind continued to wander back to Harry. He would allow himself the occasional observation. Just to make sure that Harry was okay.

That was normal, wasn’t it?

Shaking his head, he focused his mind on the Charms essay that was due at the end of the week.

A few hours later, as he was packing up to head back to his room, he spotted Luna’s shock of dishwater-blonde hair. She was sitting next to Potter, who's normally messy hair now looked like a riotous rat’s nest. The man had clearly been running his hands through it in frustration. They were tucked in a corner with a Notice-Me-Not charm around the table. Draco had spent the last year perfecting that charm and could usually see through it. He would have just continued on his way, but something gave him pause.

Luna, wand tucked into a wildly messy bun, was sitting cross-legged atop the table while peeling a satsuma. She would pop a segment into her mouth and quietly set the next beside Harry’s left hand. Almost absently, Harry would grab the fruit and eat it. He didn’t seem to be aware of the action and Luna never said anything about it. Once the satsuma was finished, she fished what looked like a bag of almonds out of her pocket and would set several down by Harry’s hand before eating a few as well.

Draco wondered how long this had been going on. Clearly, Luna had known far longer than him that Harry hadn’t been eating. He wondered why Harry would eat unconsciously if he wasn’t willing to do so at proper meal times. Was Luna the only reason he was eating? And how in Merlin’s name did Luna always know the right thing to say or do in any situation? Yes, her phrasing and metaphors were always odd, but she always got to the crux of the issue.

He would be lying if he said he wasn’t jealous: he had never been known for his ability to say the right thing in emotional situations. But he pushed that train of thought aside and continued to his room. Luna had noticed that something was wrong with Harry. She had already helped Draco so much, so she would surely be able to help Harry as well. He’d still keep an eye on him, though. Just in case.

***

Harry’s skin was tingling. Not in that pleasant way sensation would sing across your skin when aroused. No. It was like an itch he couldn’t scratch. Like an army of ants marched through his veins, along his forearms, up the back of his neck and onto his scalp. The insects bit and stung his flesh as they crept across his body.

It wasn’t the first time this happened. But in the past, he had been so exhausted from the day’s work that he was eventually able to block out the tingling enough to sleep. Not tonight though. He was so thankful that the Ravenclaw he had been roomed with—Michael something?—wasn’t there to stare at him in his obvious distress.

Michael was never in their room. The boy had come in their first night, stuffed most of the contents of his trunk into his school bag and buggered off to his girlfriend’s dorm where he stayed most of the time. Harry didn’t think he had seen Michael in their room once since and figured that he probably wouldn’t.

He didn’t mind. Not really. After six years of living in close quarters with four other boys and then a year on the run camping with Ron and Hermione, he was glad to have a bit of space to himself. Especially on nights like tonight.

The itching, crawling feeling wouldn’t stop. What made it worse was that he couldn’t pinpoint what had brought it on. He hadn’t been thinking about the war or those that had been lost, or even life at the Dursleys. Not being able to identify the cause added to his irritation. The imaginary ants strayed from his vertebrae and climbed up the side of his neck, down his back, to the soles of his feet. He couldn’t stand it any longer and began to scratch. 

Harry felt like a dog revelling in head scratches as he plunged his fingers into his hair. He began to vigorously scrub his scalp with his stubby nails, which he had bitten to the quick. He would satisfy the need in one spot only for it to arise in another. If only he knew a spell that would scratch the entirety of his body! He had tried a strong Scourgify ages ago, but the little relief it provided was fleeting and left him with an even stronger urge to scratch out the tiny devils beneath the layers of skin.

It felt as though every nerve in his body were alert with the need to scratch. His chipped nails rubbed his skin raw. He briefly considered charming his nails longer but didn’t think he could concentrate long enough for the spell to be effective. 

Unable to satisfy the itch, he went into the loo and turned the shower on as hot as he could stand it before stepping under the spray and scouring his body with the rough loofah. He hoped that a good scrub and the scent would do the trick. He didn’t step out of the shower stall until his skin was bright pink—he was sure he had scrubbed off the top layer of his skin.

_ It worked _ , a little voice whispered inside his head as he stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. But as soon as he sped back into the bedroom, the itching was back. He considered heading back into the steamy bathroom, but the humidity hanging in the air was oppressive and everything against his skin was an irritant. He ripped the towel off and let it drop to the floor, not caring where it fell. 

He sank down into his desk chair and scratched at his forearm again as he stared at a spot on the wall. It was as though the insects had pooled in the veins and tendons of his forearms, burrowing further and further in. The feeling grew more and more oppressive. He was just about to let out an anguished cry when his attention snapped to the inner portion of his left forearm.

A small rivulet of blood had welled up from the angry scratch marks that had bloomed across his arm. There wasn’t much of it. He had only just broken the skin. There was no major or even permanent damage. Just the sight of that small red blush. Proof of life. Proof of a heart beating and blood rushing through his veins. 

Harry’s breathing slowed. His eyes, which had been distant and unfocused, were drawn to the sight of blood. Oxygen hit his lungs again. It was a relief. Had he stopped breathing? His shoulders relaxed. His teeth unclenched. The itching stopped. He felt calm. At peace even. That little spot of red stilled the racing thoughts and made them nothing more than white noise. 

_ This is real _ , the voice whispered to him.

_ Do you see that? That is a slow trail of liquid life. That is proof that you are here. That you are alive. That all of this is real. Do you feel that heat on your skin around the open wound? I bet you couldn’t feel it before. Do you feel the rest of the blood in your body singing as it rushes through your veins, some of it peaking out to heal the scratch in your flesh? Do you see how your body is working to keep you alive? To keep you going? Hold onto this moment, this certainty. _

_ This is how you are supposed to feel. _

And the thing was, he  _ did _ feel it. He felt the raw skin, the blood trickling down the side of his arm as it carved a rivulet of red through the map of his flesh. He felt a small scab begin to form along the skin. The tightness of his flesh trying to knit itself back together. How had he not felt any of this as it was happening? How had he not felt his hands tear his skin open?

As he thought on it, he realised it had been a very long time since he could remember feeling anything. Since the war, every touch felt muted, hidden, and he wasn’t sure why. If he remembered correctly—and lately he often didn’t remember events of that day correctly—the muted feeling began after he chose to return. After he left Dumbledore and the odd shrivelled being that had been Voldemort’s soul and chose to return to the land of the living.

Something was wrong with him.

He was not the same Harry that had walked into the forest to face his death. Just like he wasn’t the same Harry that had boarded the Hogwarts Express at the age of eleven. He had changed a great deal over the last seven years. In most ways, he had changed for the better. But something deep down told him that this particular change was anything but good. 

Pushing the thought from his mind, Harry quickly healed the fiery scratch marks from his forearms but left the small cut to clot on its own. Other than this revelation, his mind was for once blank and peaceful. He figured he might as well take advantage of this relaxed state.

He breathed a sigh of relief at being able to clear his racing mind, climbed naked into bed and allowed himself to fall into a sleep deeper than any he had been able to achieve without the help of potions in almost a year.

***

Draco had never been a particularly good sleeper. His mother used to say that, as an infant, he used to fight sleep out of a fear of missing anything interesting. His little eyes had tracked all activity with such intense focus and curiosity that she had secretly been sure the Sorting Hat would put him in Ravenclaw. And it almost had. True, the hat had spoken even before it was fully seated atop his head, but it had only done so because he had been mentally screaming “Put me in Slytherin!” since Professor McGonagall began calling students up for the sorting. But he had heard the hat’s warbling voice ask, “Are you sure? You could be great in Ra—”

Sleep had never come easy to him. There was always something to learn or think about. He could sleep later, he constantly told himself. Besides, he was young and the house-elves were only too happy to provide caffeine whenever he asked.

During his first six years at Hogwarts, he had taken to staying up late in the common room to study or read. His stint as a seventh year…well, he didn’t like to think about that year. But now, as an eighth year, he had no curfew and didn’t have to be confined to a dorm room. He found himself wandering the halls most nights. He would have liked to cast a strong Notice-Me-Not charm, but his parole forbade such magic unless it was a part of his coursework. Hardly anyone was ever out when he went on his walks, as he waited until after the younger years’ curfew, but he still prefered to keep to the lesser travelled corridors.

He suspected that Harry and his friends had some secret way of getting around the castle—he knew about the cloak but was sure that hadn’t accounted for everything throughout the years. There had been rumours of secret passageways, but he was sure those had all either been destroyed or closed up during the recent repairs. 

It would have been nice if he had found one, but he was content to just explore the halls, examining every portrait he came across, learning who their subjects were and what they were like. He honestly had more conversations with portraits these days than with other human beings, Luna notwithstanding. It was nice, even if many of the portraits were completely barmy.

Although he walked alone, he was rarely the only student up and out of bed. Most of the eighth years would head down to the kitchens late at night or go visit friends in other houses. But none of them ever lingered, not as he did. No one, that is, except for Harry.

Most nights, in the common room, Draco would watch from an inconspicuous chair in the furthest corner of the room and observe Harry breaking away from his study group, claiming exhaustion, and going up to his room. However, he found that multiple times a week, Harry would shroud himself in his Invisibility Cloak and roam the castle like a ghost.

He had followed on a few occasions, but he always lost the sneaky bastard. It was just as well, he told himself. He didn’t really care where the Saviour was going. The man was probably off to find another Gryffindor to shag, now that he and the Weaselette had split.

He sighed. At least on a rational level, he knew he was being unkind. He had held a quiet bitterness about the relationship for a while now. Longer than he cared to admit. Well…maybe “quiet” was too strong a word. If you asked Pansy or Blaise, they might have gleefully taken the opportunity to point out that Draco had very strong opinions on the matter and needed to “get his head out of his arse and do something about it.” He had wisely chosen to ignore their unsolicited advice.

Just because he happened to pay enough attention to Harry to know his favourite dessert (treacle tart) and how he took his tea (entirely too much milk and two sugars), it didn’t mean he was interested. It meant nothing that he could often tell the young man’s mood based solely on how his school tie was done up that day. And, NO BLAISE, MY AMORTENTIA DID NOT SMELL LIKE HIM! POTTER WAS WEARING ENTIRELY TOO MUCH COLOGNE THAT DAY! 

Besides, it wasn’t like Harry was even gay. Or at least, Draco hadn’t thought so until he spotted Harry disappearing behind a tapestry with Ernie Macmillan at the party in the eighth year common room the first night back. Even if Harry were, it was unlikely that he would even give Draco a second glance. He shook his head to dislodge those errant thoughts.

The castle was so quiet and peaceful at night. The only sounds permeating the stillness were the gentle scrape of stone against stone as the staircases moved and the occasional distant meow of Mrs Norris. Slivers of moonlight filtered through the embrasures, adding a slightly haunted feel to the flickering torchlight. During his first evening trek, he had been concerned that he might feel haunted by the war and his actions over the last few years. And those thoughts  _ had _ plagued him, but with Delia’s help, he was now able to begin to move forward.

There were only two parts of the castle he was sure he would never be able to go near again: the Astronomy Tower and the Room of Hidden Things. He couldn’t even go down the corridors leading to those two spots: in his mind, they had become testaments of what he had been forced to do, what he was and wasn’t capable of. Those sites were places he was no longer free to tread, no longer welcome. 

The loss of the Astronomy Tower had been particularly hard. He had loved their classes up there, loved mapping the movements of the stars and other celestial bodies. They were always there. A constant in his life. He knew it was a bit ironic, but they used to ground him. Now, when he wanted to study the stars, Draco would go out to the Quidditch stands and lay down upon the topmost row of bleachers and stare up at the sky.

That night, the stars were calling to him. He was glad that he had had the foresight to bring a blanket, shrunken in his pocket. Autumn had arrived and with it a chill in the air. He had always been cold-natured—in more senses than one. He had always been thin and wiry, never producing an excess of body heat. His hands and feet were perpetually cold, now made worse by the nerve damage he had suffered at the hands of Aunt Bella.

Although not widely studied, it was known that prolonged exposure to the Cruciatus Curse did cause physical damage. His Occlumency shields were excellent, so he had been spared mental damage, but he now had trouble regulating his body temperature. His extremities often felt as though they were on pins and needles. It was manageable, but he’d found that exposure to cold made his symptoms worse.

So before sneaking out of the castle, he cast his strongest warming charm, putting extra effort on his hands and feet, and enlarged the blanket before wrapping it around his shoulders. He strolled onto the grounds, immediately feeling lighter. As if he were eleven again and the biggest problem in his life was having someone not liking him. 

The feeling he had as he made his way to the stands was almost like flying. He hadn’t been able to get on a broom since he and Harry had escaped from the Room of Hidden Things, but he had missed the sensation of the wind in his face. Now, he felt his burdens being lifted off him as he crossed the freshly trimmed grass of the pitch, revelling in the scent before climbing up the stands two steps at a time.

The wind was stronger up at the top. Even though he knew it would slightly impede his visibility, he cast a modified Protego around him, to protect himself from the harshest of the wind’s gusts. He lay back. Most people’s eyes immediately found Polaris or Orion’s Belt, but his went straight to his namesake. Next, his gaze skated over to Gemini and Leo. He mapped out the zodiac in his mind and tried to assess any meaning from their locations—not that he believed in that sort of thing. To him, Astrology was akin to Divination, so often complete rubbish. But he did it all the same.

Mapping out the stars had become like meditation to him. Delia was a huge proponent of a Muggle practice called Mindfulness. Just like with everything else, he had been sceptical, but once his mind settled on the inky black sky with pinpricks and swirls of tiny lights he was able to relax, to let go. Aware of his body and his thoughts. Here, he could sort through everything rationally. When negativity washed over him, he could let it all go.

After a while—he wasn’t exactly sure how much time had passed—his thoughts drifted back to Potter. Harry. Earlier that day, he had again witnessed Luna trailing along after the man, carrying the conversation on both ends.

Harry had appeared drawn and physically uncomfortable, but he never seemed to mind the girl. He wasn’t ignoring her exactly, so much as allowing her words to wash over him. It was as if he was a large whale that had been beached along the shore and Luna the ocean’s tides gently crashing around him, keeping him cool and hydrated just enough so he wouldn’t perish.

But what would happen when the tide went out?

Luna couldn’t be Harry’s life raft, just like Delia couldn’t be Draco’s. He thought back to dinner several nights ago when Harry had seemed like a weary actor upon a stage, trying desperately to continue the show. He wondered how lonely it must be for Harry to be back in the castle, his closest friends gone, trying to pretend as if they all just hadn’t fought a war together. 

So much had changed. Draco had changed—for the better, he hoped. And yet, so many things remained the same, or at least, the same in appearance. Harry was drowning, though clearly doing a decent job trying to mask it. It surprised Draco less than it probably should have to realise he wanted to help Harry. He wanted to extend a hand. But would Harry take it? And if he did, would he drag Draco down with him?

***

He didn’t do it all the time. Scratching himself. Just when he needed it. Logically, he knew that it probably wasn’t that healthiest option. Normal people weren’t calmed down by the sight of their own blood. And yet…it worked. It wasn’t very efficient, but whenever the telltale creeping along his spine and arms began, Harry would excuse himself to scratch. 

Unfortunately, it was becoming uncomfortable to have fabric lay across the raw flesh lately. Even when he magically healed the scratch marks, his arms and wherever else he had indulged continued to burn a little. 

Today had been draining. Charms and Transfiguration and Potions and Astronomy had all run together. He doubted any of the professors had realised, but they were all going easy on him; on all the eighth years really, but him in particular. Slughorn hadn’t said anything when Harry had nodded off in the middle of brewing. Sinestra let it slide that his essay was half of the required length. And McGonagall’s replacement, a woman whose name Harry couldn’t recall, made no comment when he clearly cocked up the transfiguration of a bullfrog into a Shetland pony.

It was slightly irritating that they all glossed over his fuckups and just ignored everything because he was “the Saviour” and had defeated Voldemort. Everyone always treated him as though he had acted alone _ which was so far from the truth that it was almost funny. _

_ You were just incredibly lucky, you know. Had your friends not been there to bail you out—like they always do—had Neville not killed the snake, had even one thing gone differently, you would be dead. _

Most of the eighth years still treated him as just Harry, but to the rest of the school, he was heralded as some kind of hero. He was constantly bombarded by “fans”. Over the summer, he had been subjected to several letters containing love potions, assortments of previously worn knickers and pants, and on one horrifying occasion, a clump of pubic hair which Hermione had said was some reference to Lord Byron. He didn’t really care what the literary reference was, all of it was equally nauseating. In the end, he had had to ask McGonagall to restrict the owls so they only brought him letters from Hermione, the Weasleys, and Andromeda; any other mail was vanished as soon as it arrived. 

He just wanted it all to stop. Couldn’t he be Harry, just Harry, for once in his life? Couldn’t he enjoy a year of school where no one was trying to kill him, where he could spend some time figuring himself out? He just wanted to be normal. Maybe that was too much to ask.

He tried, he desperately tried. He ignored most of the students who accosted him in the hallways with gratitude and thanks. He spent time with his friends. He flew almost every day and had taken to helping assist Madame Hooch with the care and upkeep of the school brooms.

He studied, he laughed. Hell, he had even gone to that party Seamus had set up on their first night back. He had several shots of something awful that had been going around. He danced. He even snogged some bloke from Hufflepuff behind a tapestry. Had it been Ernie? Harry had been rather drunk at that point in the evening and honestly couldn’t remember. 

The memory was a bit fuzzy, but he did remember thinking that it wasn’t half bad and maybe when he felt up to it, he would reexamine the assumption he had been working under that he was straight. Well, if he were honest, he knew that he wasn’t. Not really. He had, after all, thought about several former Quidditch rivals whilst in the shower, but he wasn’t quite ready to examine all of that right now. The apathy clawed at him and consumed most of his waking thoughts.

It was an odd feeling. He knew he was fucking up in class. He knew that the professors weren’t holding him accountable. But he wanted them to. He wanted them to take him to task, to assign detentions, but he also couldn’t make himself care enough to do anything about it or push himself harder. 

All he could really focus on was the swirl of thoughts that constantly surrounded him, the buzzing in his ears, the static. The white noise. He worked so hard to push through it all and do what he had always done and live up to everyone’s expectations. And he thought that maybe he was doing a good enough job. He was doing enough to mask the numbness, the nothingness. No one seemed to notice. Well, no one except Luna.

After a few days back in the castle, Luna had sidled up to him as she had done numerous times during his sixth year, and just started keeping him company. And while the social interaction was just as draining as it was with everyone else, he didn’t feel pressured to pretend with her. He never had. Sometimes, he wished that he was able to have feelings for Luna. She would have been so easy to love, but the attraction just wasn’t there, and a small part of him was relieved by this. 

With Luna, he could just be. He could sit and just let her talk, or even sit with her in silence. It was never awkward and she never expected anything from him. It was nice. But a small voice in his head kept whispering that she wasn’t the blond he wanted to be sitting with. Because while he could relax around Luna, she didn’t energize or inspire passion in him like Draco did. She didn’t inspire any feelings at all within him.

That other blond…he wouldn’t even think about Draco. Just, sometimes he wished that a sharply worded jab would be flung his way over the dinner table. Something about his hair or his poor table manners. But none ever came. He told himself it was a relief, that he didn’t need anything more to deal with. 

That night, when he got back to his dorms, he was so tired. So very, very tired. All he wanted to do was pull the curtains around his bed, spell them shut, and sleep until he awoke naturally. But the itch was back. He simply didn’t have the energy to scratch his arms raw. Most nights, it was absent-minded yet furious. But something told him that tonight was different.

The tension in his shoulders had been building for what felt like hours. He just wanted a quick relief and then easy sleep. Besides, his stubby bitten nails were never really able to bring enough of that sweet coppery life force to the surface. He wanted, no,  _ needed _ to see more. He needed to feel more.

_ You know what you need to do. _

The sinister thought continued to squash the voice of reason in the back of his mind—the tiny little voice that was growing quieter and quieter with each passing day. The one which murmured that maybe he shouldn’t. That thinking about those types of things wasn’t exactly normal or healthy. But it was no more than a whisper now, easily dismissed.

_ But you’re a wizard. If anything bad were to happen you would be able to staunch the flow easily. How can something that brings you this much relief be wrong? _

The easiest thing to do would be to cast a small severing charm, just a nick to the skin. However, something about that option gave him pause. Turning their own magic upon themselves was something they had always been told never to do. 

Repairing his glasses or casting a quick freshening charm or even a minor healing spell was one thing, but actively using his magic to open up his skin felt wrong, somehow. It wasn’t something that he felt would help bring him the calm he so desired. It felt like another stressor. So, he set his wand aside and went into the ensuite bathroom to rummage around the medicine cabinet for a better instrument. Something to aid him in his quest for relief. 

Unfortunately, nothing seemed effective enough. He hadn’t learned how to shave the Muggle way so there was no razor available. Ron had borrowed his nail clippers; the thought of using those was just disgusting. A quill nib would have been convenient, but in a small act of rebellion, he had thrown out all their quills and was exclusively using biros. With a sigh of frustration, he stalked back to the bedroom and began rummaging through his trunk for something, anything that he could use. He didn’t really own much other than his school supplies and a few sets of Muggle clothing. He had never owned much while living with the Dursleys and he had ditched quite a lot of things before they went on the run the year prior. 

Technically, everything within Grimmauld Place was his, but he had yet to set foot back in that house. There were too many memories. Too much to deal with. Pain and grief. Sirius’s old home; the place he had hated and been miserable within for the last year of his life. Sirius who had been like a father to him. Sirius who he should have been with instead of his aunt and uncle. Sirius—

Harry hissed in pain as his fingers made contact with a sharp edge. He yanked his hand back from the bottom of the trunk and raised the injured digit to his face, watching as a tiny bead of blood welled up on the pad. It was as if he could feel his pupils dilating to better take in the sight. His breathing, which he hadn’t realised had grown rough and ragged, suddenly slowed. He could feel each beat of his heart, the expansion and contraction of his lungs. The rushing in his ears quieted.

Peace.

Peace.

Peering back into the bottom of his trunk, Harry found the moleskin pouch Hagrid had given him for his seventeenth birthday. The pouch was open—he must have not closed it properly when he had placed it in the trunk. Gingerly, he reached out, picking it up and grabbing the item he knew remained inside. The item that had cut him. His fingers closed around the shard of mirror he had carried with him throughout the previous year. The cold glass pressed into his palm and sent his mind reeling.

_ Sirius gave you this mirror before he died. You could have used this mirror to communicate with Sirius that night. But you didn’t. Yet another death that was entirely your fault. _

Harry’s breathing sped up again. The tentative peace was shattered. It was his fault. His fault that Sirius had died. His fault that so many people had died: Cedric, Moody, Colin, Lavender, Fred, Tonks, Remus, his parents, Sirius. 

Had he not been involved, all of those people would still be alive. Had he just been better, strong enough, had he thought everything through, turned himself over to Voldemort earlier, everything could have been different. Images of Fred’s broken and battered body being pulled from the rubble, Cedric’s shade asking that his corpse be brought back to his parents, and countless others flooded Harry’s mind, pushing him down down down onto the cold stone floor. They were trying to drown him.

There was a tight pressure on his lungs, like a band across his chest, not unlike the feeling he had during the second task of the Triwizard Tournament when the Gillyweed had worn off. If he didn’t reach the surface soon and got the thoughts to stop, he would drown. He needed it to stop. All he wanted was to break the surface of that water and breathe. Breathe and be at peace once again.

Without thinking, Harry took the shard of Sirius’s mirror and brought its jagged edge to the inside of his forearm. He drew a horizontal line across his skin. The cut was thin, just a bit deeper than a scratch. But the bloom of red was enough. His lungs opened up and received the air they had previously been denied. 

The blood came faster and more heavily than it did when he scratched himself with his nails. The small trickle ran down the curve of his arm and began to drip lightly against the floor.

The crimson, a Gryffindor red, was like being enveloped in a warm heavy blanket. It was like sitting by the fire at the Weasleys. It was like the smell of a warm treacle tart straight out of the oven. The buzzing in his ears and the voices telling him it was all his fault ceased. His mind was blissfully blank. It was amazing. It was euphoric and Godric, he never wanted that feeling to end.

He knew he needed to staunch the flow and get to bed, though. He had volunteered to give remedial flying lessons the next morning and finally felt as though he would be able to relax enough to fall asleep. He cast a quick cleaning spell at the wound and placed a plaster over the cut, but did not heal it. A small part of him wanted to keep it, to let it scar as a reminder of the pain he had once caused and the peace he was now able to achieve.

Quickly, he placed the mirror back into the pouch and set it on his bedside table. Maybe he would start wearing the pouch again. It would be nice to be able to carry the shard with him as an additional humbling reminder. It was only right. He shouldn’t ever forget. 

Sleep found him easily that night. If he was plagued by dreams, they were long forgotten by morning.

***

It was long past curfew. Well past when professors and prefects patrolled the halls. Draco doubted even Filch and his cat were still roaming the corridors.

He had tried to sleep. He really had. But his thoughts had been racing and not even a guided meditation had helped. Delia had sent him to school with several memories of guided meditation sessions that he could place in his small Pensieve when needed. He knew that there were various electronic devices he could listen to these sessions with—he had a walkman shoved in the bottom of his trunk somewhere, but he had yet to figure out how to make the thing work at Hogwarts.

He had been wandering the halls for hours, it seemed. No real destination in mind, just allowing his feet to carry him where they willed. He walked softly, his feet barely making a sound against the flagstones. He didn’t really need a muffling charm to disguise the gentle scrape of his footfalls, but he had cast one anyway, just to be on the safe side. Living alongside the Dark Lord had taught him the importance of going about unseen and unheard. Self-preservation had always been in his nature, but that year, it had become even more important. Old habits die hard.

He had started his trek in the dungeons, placing a hand reverently on Snape’s old office door. The space hadn’t been occupied since  _ that _ night, that night that changed everything. But it would always hold a place in Draco’s heart. It was one of the few places in the castle he had truly felt safe during sixth year. And even before that, it had been a place of comfort, of refuge. Severus had been his godfather, his mentor. He had confided so many things to the man, shared so much of himself. More than he had with anyone else.

Severus had always made him feel seen. Made him feel like he had worth. More worth than just a child born to perpetuate the family line. With Severus, he almost believed that he could be more than just a pureblood heir, a carrier of legacy. As though he could have a purpose in life beyond climbing the social ranks. Severus had made him feel accepted…loved just for who he was. His godfather had allowed him the space to figure out who he was meant to be.

When he had finally come out in fifth year, Severus hadn’t judged him or tried to “talk some sense into him”. He had just shrugged, told him to use protection charms and pointed him in the direction of several books in the library that would reliably inform him about the mechanics of homosexual relations. 

Draco had taken Severus for granted. He knew that. And he bitterly regretted not taking him up on his offers to help throughout sixth year. He sometimes wondered, especially now that he knew of his godfather’s true allegiance, what would have happened if he had trusted the man. Would Severus have been able to spare him and his mother from the horrors they experienced? Probably not. But the thoughts were still there.

From the dungeons, he snuck into the kitchens, filling up his thermos—one of his favourite Muggle inventions—with slightly over-steeped Earl Grey tea and a thin slice of lemon. An eager house-elf tried to stuff some biscuits or scones into his pocket, but he politely declined. Eating this late would only result in vivid dreams whenever he was finally able to drift off to sleep.

Draco allowed his feet to carry him of their own volition He no longer searched for hidden places in the castle. He could have easily made his rounds with all the portraits and oddities of the castle, but on nights like these, he wandered silently, blind to his surroundings. Walking was distraction enough.

It was precisely this mentality that found Draco standing hesitantly in the archway leading to the seventh-floor corridor. Since his return, he had purposely avoided this area of the castle. But his traitorous feet had carried him there as if drawn to a magnet. It was as if something pulled at his magic, begging him to get closer. 

_ The Room _ . 

The room where he had sought Potter and his army. The room he had spent countless hours in, desperately trying to repair the broken cabinet in hopes of saving his family. The room where he had succeeded and allowed Death Eaters into the castle. The room where Vincent had died, screaming. The room where he himself would have perished if Harry hadn’t reached out a hand.

His mind was screaming at him to turn around. To flee. To protect himself. And yet his magic was calling. Something tugged at it, begged him to stay. Implored him to take a look. There was something that needed him. As if it wanted him to care.

Draco knew that many would find it absurd that he had that capacity. The capacity to care. But if his sixth year spent working on the irreparable Vanishing Cabinet had taught him anything, it was that he had an infinite capacity to care, to help repair. True, he was selective and that had been a matter of life and death. But he had found an odd sense of pride in this newfound ability. And now, any time that sense was provoked, he did his best to follow.

Maybe that was what had drawn him to Potter—to Harry— why he was always so attuned to where the man was in any given room. He constantly wondered what Harry was doing and why he looked so miserable all the time. Perhaps his time in the room was what helped him see the misery Harry was in now. Merlin knew no one else seemed to notice. Luna didn’t count; she noticed everything. 

Maybe that was why Draco had ended up in the seventh-floor corridor tonight, not too far from the Room of Hidden Things. Because there, on the floor below the tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy, sat Harry.

From Draco’s position, slightly hidden behind a statue of a horribly disfigured witch, he could observe Harry without being seen himself. It had been a common hiding place for him in fifth year. At first, he thought that Harry was just resting, but the longer he looked at him, bathed in low torchlight, the clearer it became that Harry’s eyes were fixated on the wall ahead of him.

That wall housed a door that would never open again. Harry must have walked the corridor three times asking the door to appear—as it was now plainly visible—before sitting against the opposite wall. The Headmistress had announced at the beginning of term that the room had been sealed off. Fiendfyre likely still raged within the room’s walls, so its door would forever remain shut. Clearly though, it could still be summoned.

Draco wondered why Harry was so fixated on the door. He knew the man had a connection to the room, what with teaching and very nearly dying in it, but he had no idea what would draw him back to the place. Somehow he could tell that Harry had spent many nights doing just this. It didn’t seem like a random occurrence that he was there.

As he watched, Draco saw Harry’s hands move, twirling a silver object between his fingers. The movement was too rapid for Draco to discern exactly what Harry was holding, but the sight of it filled him with a sense of foreboding. He longed to reach out and pluck the object from Harry’s hands. But he did nothing, rooted to the spot with an odd mixture of fear and curiosity. Harry’s hands moved. Shadows flitted across the young man’s well-toned forearms. He thought he saw the object flash through the air, but he couldn’t be certain from this distance. Harry made no other movements, nothing to indicate what he had done.

Draco should have backed away and left Harry to himself. He should have gone back to his room and forgotten that he had seen anything. Nothing good could come from stumbling across Harry in the hallway where the room was. He should have left, but he couldn’t.

He watched as Harry murmured a spell and tucked the silver object into a pouch around his neck. Harry’s shoulders instantly began to tense up once the object was gone from sight. He watched Harry slowly begin to massage the palms of his hands and fiddle with each finger, eventually moving on to stroke his forearms, completely spaced out.

He was just debating if he should make his presence known when Harry suddenly stood up and took three quick strides to the sealed door across the corridor. He watched curiously as Harry stood looking at it for what felt like ages before taking a deep breath and grasping the heavy doorknob.

Draco sucked in a sharp breath. He knew then. Knew that the blistering fire still raged inside. He watched as Harry’s face contorted ever so slightly into a grimace of pain. How did the man not know? And why the fuck was he still holding onto the knob?!

He watched in horror as Harry took another breath and tightened his grip as if forcing himself to hold on for just a moment longer. Finally, Harry let out an almost inaudible whimper and wrenched himself away from the door, cradling his now burnt hand to his chest. After a few seconds, Harry turned and began walking away from the room in the direction of Draco’s hiding spot. Draco panicked, knowing that once Harry passed the statue there would be no place else to hide. Too late he thought of casting a disillusionment spell.

Harry walked straight into Draco, clearly not having paid attention to his surroundings.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, not even bothering to look up. He just tried to sidestep the roadblock and continue on his way.

“Potter.”

Draco grimaced. Old habits. Fuck! Why couldn’t he speak one normal sentence that didn’t sound viciously antagonistic? He had done so well on the platform. He hadn’t even sounded hostile then. Now… Now, Draco felt as though they were back in first year threatening to duel each other. 

Harry’s head shot up, startled out of his daze. Hackles raised. It was like staring down a Hippogriff all over again. Exhilarating, but terrifying. 

“You alright there?” he continued in a less scathing tone—though he still managed to sound haughty.

Harry pulled his damaged hand closer in on himself as if that would help him hide the bright red, blistering welts. “Fine, Malfoy,” he spat. “What’s it to you?”

Draco felt his hackles rise. He tried taking a deep breath. Clearly something was wrong with Harry—he had thought so for ages. But he couldn't tamp down on the urge to snark back, Harry had always brought out the worst in him. Well…not always the worst. More and more through the years, it seemed to be the best in Draco. But Harry still knew how to get underneath his skin and expose all the sensitive vulnerable bits. The wounded animal inside of him just couldn’t abide by that.

“I don’t know, Potter. Maybe it’s weird that you’re trying to get into a burning room. Are you thick? McGonagall warned us against even summoning the door at the beginning of term. What are you doing? Are you that upset by the shoddy remodel?Trying to burn the whole castle down so you can remake it in your image?”

Fuck. Why did he say that? That wasn’t the direction he wanted this to go at all.

“Get bent!” Harry bit out as he tried to shove past him.

“Too late for that,” Draco muttered.

For a split second, Harry stopped, understanding hitting him full force. And there was something else. Something akin to…solidarity flashed through his eyes. Harry had never been good at masking his thoughts. But the look was gone so quickly, it could have just been wishful thinking on Draco’s part. 

Before he could say anything else, Harry pushed past him roughly, their shoulders knocking together as he made his way down the stairs. Draco stood silently in the corridor. Had Harry really not known that the Room of Hidden Things was likely to contain a raging inferno? Could he really be that dumb? 

No. He knew Harry wasn’t thick. Maybe a bit unobservant, but considering the young man had spent the better part of seven years trying to kill a megalomaniac, he felt that maybe Harry deserved a bit of a pass.

A cold dread slowly seeped into Draco’s bones. Had Harry…touched the doorknob on purpose, knowing it would burn him? Did Harry Potter, the Saviour of the Wizarding World, just intentionally hurt himself? If so, what other things had Harry been doing in the privacy of his own room? And why was the stone floor covered in what looked like drops of blood?

***

As soon as he lost sight of Draco, Harry broke into a sprint. Heedless of the noise his feet were making, slapping against the stone floors, he ran almost blindly through the castle until he arrived at the entrance to the eighth-year common room. He tapped the third stone from the left and was immediately granted entrance.

Harry made it to his room without encountering anyone else. Yet again, he was so grateful that his assigned roommate was never there. He needed space to think.

The run from the seventh floor had done nothing to alleviate the nervous energy sourcing through his veins. The panicked feeling in his chest refused to dissipate and he didn’t know why. Harry tugged at his hair with his uninjured hand as he tried to calm himself down. A pressure bloomed in his chest, like a vice being tightened around his lungs.

The panic was so all-consuming that he could no longer feel the searing pain of the burn on the palm of his right hand. He had a bowl of Murtlap essence waiting for him on his desk. He had known that the doorknob would burn him, severely, but he had touched it anyway. Grasped it and held on as if his life depended on it. The voice in the back of his mind whispered that maybe it did.

It had taken him a while to build up the courage to do it. Some Gryffindor he was. It would have been so much easier to just take the mirror shard and slice open his wrists (which he had a bit, but not much), or his upper arms, or thighs. Each of those spots was already littered with thin criss-crossing lines. 

Instead, earlier in the evening he had woken from a dream of standing in the Room of Requirement surrounded by Fiendfyre and thinking that he was going to die. Someone had died or was about to. Crabbe was screaming somewhere in the distance, but he couldn’t see where. He couldn’t get to the boy. He was trapped on a pile of rickety old desks with fire surrounding him on all sides. No brooms were coming. Nothing would be able to save him. He had never particularly liked Crabbe, but something about the way the boy carried himself reminded him of Dudley. And suddenly, it was Dudley screaming as the Dementors swooped in and sucked out his soul.

Harry had woken screaming. He was once again glad that he had perfected silencing charms, or else the whole castle would have heard him. He had rushed out of his room, only stopping to grab his pouch and his wand. He needed to see the door again. Needed to know that while the dream had been in his head, the events of that fateful night had actually happened. He needed to make amends for not saving Crabbe.

As soon as the door appeared, he could feel the heat radiating out from the Room of Requirement. The castle was attempting to contain the raging inferno. Harry rather felt as though the sealed room reflected his inner turmoil. He too felt as though something was keeping the fire inside himself, the destructive nature within. He felt as though he would be crushed by the weight of his guilt and trauma. It was nothing that he didn’t deserve, though.

He had thought that feeling the heat of the room would have been enough. That sitting and staring at the door for however long would actually help clear his head. But all he could focus on was the sound of screaming in his head.

He knew that the door would not open. He knew that, but he still had to try. While the sight of his own blood was still calming, he didn’t feel as though he were being punished enough. The cuts and the relief that came with them were almost like rewards.

_ You deserve to be punished. To atone for your sins. You don’t deserve to be calmed. _

It took him a while to work up the courage, but finally, reasoning that since he hadn’t been feeling anything since Voldemort’s downfall, he convinced himself it wouldn’t be so bad.

He wasn’t completely wrong. The metal of the doorknob was almost as though it were on fire itself. He was convinced it would melt in his hands right there, but nothing happened. He just steeled himself and tightened his grip.

Pain bloomed across his palm, white-hot. He imagined…or maybe he actually did feel the skin on his palm blister. As if his very flesh had been set ablaze. Even with the soothing effects of the Murtlap essence later, he would be reminded of the blissful pain every time something touched his hand over the coming days.

He could feel this. He could feel the discomfort, reminding him that yes, he was indeed alive. His body was working as it should, sending a pain response. He could breathe again. Everything that happened in that room was real. It was real and horrible, but he lived through it and was okay.

But then he ran into Draco Malfoy. The thought of the young man having seen him after allowing himself to be burned…the judgemental comments, the taunting… It had all been too much. The only thing that stopped him from punching Malfoy right then and there was the fact that he could no longer make a fist with his blistered hand.

The thing was, though, the thrill Harry had felt coursing through his body as he and Draco verbally sparred had been electric. He could hardly suppress a shudder at the thought of it now. He had felt it.  _ Felt it.  _ Fighting with Malfoy was just like flying: fast, intense, adrenaline-fueled. With just a hint of danger.

That thrill lasted. 

For days after, Harry rode that high. It lasted so much longer than anything else. Harry found himself watching Malfoy across the Great Hall, in the library, and in class. He found little ways to antagonise the young man—a tripping jinx here, a quick shove in the hallways there—subtle, yet effective. That old familiar thrill of tracking the young man throughout the castle sent a small thrill through him. Briefly, he wondered if he had been poisoned. But no, he could actually focus on his schoolwork and on what his friends were saying. Colours that he hadn’t been able to see in ages finally began to bleed through his vision. Everything was light and more vibrant. And then…

And then, just like the morning mists along the Hogwarts grounds, that feeling slowly evaporated. When it was gone, he felt like a part of him had been severed. Seeing the blood helped. Seeing the rich red liquid rise up from beneath the skin of his arms or his hips took the edge off, sustaining him at night or when he was unable to seek out the man. It was so easy. He had seven years of practice antagonising the former Death Eater, knowing just what buttons to push and win. Just like with seeing the coppery lifeforce, provoking Draco Malfoy became a favoured addiction. It felt good. It felt real. He made him feel. He needed to feel it again.

***

Despite the crackling fire in the hearth of the eighth year common room, Draco was still very cold. Even wrapped in blankets, wearing two pairs of woollen socks and having placed a strong warming charm on himself, he needed to sit directly in front of the grate. His Transfiguration text floated before him while he lazily reviewed his notes. He wasn’t doing it out of necessity, though. As always, he was on the lookout for Harry.

Ever since the incident outside of the Room of Hidden Things, Harry had become increasingly antagonistic. His attitude towards Draco was similar to that of their first year, Draco tried not to react to it, to not rise to the bait: he knew Harry was looking for a reaction out of him.

But after Harry had cornered him in the Potions corridor the week prior, Draco felt compelled to respond, at least a little bit. He hated falling back into the role of his former self, but the desperate glint in Harry’s eyes had brought down all of his walls. It was as if Harry’s mind had been screaming out to him. For something…anything. Although he wasn’t sure of what Harry needed, he longed to give it to him.

Giving up on revising, Draco stuffed his notes into his textbook and sent everything back up to his room with a flick of his wand. He sighed, wishing he could simply summon a house-elf to the common room and have coffee delivered. Instead, he flicked his wand at the tiny, Muggle-adapted coffee pot with the shitty instant mix and settled in for the long haul.

When the clock finally chimed midnight, just as his eyes began to droop and the thought of returning to his bed became too strong, Luna seemed to materialise out of thin air. The girl was always doing that. Had he not known Had he not known that Apparition was impossible inside the confines of Hogwarts, he would have suspected her of using it.

She sat daintily on the floor beside him, seeming to relish the heat of the fire as well. She was quiet as she stared into the flames and lazily braided her hair. Draco smiled a bit, enjoying the company and Luna’s calming presence.

“When was the last time you spoke with Delia?” she asked, apropos of nothing.

It had taken him a while to get used to Luna’s seemingly random train of thought. Now, he knew that almost nothing with her was random. She was incredibly frank and to the point, if you could see past her metaphors and talk of highly improbable magical creatures. He had long since stopped trying to hide things from her. She always saw through him anyway.

“Tuesday,” he said. “It was our last session for a while. She’s on holiday through the rest of November, visiting family in America. I’ll see her again in December.”

Luna hummed her acknowledgement and continued to plait her hair.

“Do you think I should speak to her again?” he asked. “She said I could call her mobile whenever, but she’s celebrating that food holiday the Muggles have with her family and, well…”

“No,” she said dreamily. “What did she say when you told her about your concern for Harry?”

He sighed. It was no secret that he was bothered by Harry’s antagonism, but he doubted most people understood why. Draco played with the hem of his jumper, not really wanting to discuss this with anyone. Almost his entire session had been about his feelings towards Harry. It was clear he felt more than gratitude for saving his life and keeping him out of Azkaban. In fact, his feelings went beyond normal concern. Had he just been concerned for Harry’s wellbeing, he could have easily spoken to McGonagall or Madam Pomfrey, or hell, he could have even written to Granger. But he hadn’t done any of those things. Things he probably should have done.

He was invested in this. Personally invested to the point that he was disrupting his life to observe Harry. He had told himself over and over that it was just because he felt that he owned Harry so much, but his session with Delia had forced him to confront the reality of the situation. 

The days and weeks after the final battle had brought clarification. Harry wasn’t the self-obsessed, holier-than-thou person he had thought him to be. Harry was good, kind, courageous, and selfless. Even though they had argued and antagonised each other from the first disastrous day, he had always been aware of Harry. And now…

The desire to befriend him had never truly gone away. And although most everything he did was misguided, he had always done it out of a desire to impress Harry. He had wanted Harry to look up one day and suddenly realise he had made a mistake in not taking his hand on the train, that they could have been real friends. He wanted some of that Gryffindor courage. He wanted to be able to go up to Harry and ask to start over, try at being friends, or maybe even… 

But no, he thought. He had never felt worthy. Until now, while he was rebuilding his life. Now he finally felt as though he had something to offer. He cared. He wanted to be there. He wanted to do whatever he could to help. He cared what happened to Harry and he wanted to help the man not just survive, but thrive. 

He made it his mission to watch Harry’s comings and goings, especially at night, to make sure he wasn’t going back to the Room. He noticed how Harry’s smiles never reached his eyes, and how he pretended to eat during meals—as if he didn’t see the point in nourishing himself, but was aware enough to pretend. Draco noticed how the only time he ever saw a spark of life in those green eyes was when Harry was picking a fight with him.

Draco shifted in his chair as he stared into the flames. It was useless to hide things from Luna though. “She…she said that Harry may be dealing with his trauma from the war and…everything. And maybe that he’s lashing out because he isn’t exactly sure how to express that.”

“Maybe,” Luna murmured. She was quiet for another long moment before continuing. “Do you remember the year before last, your sixth year, when I told you that you were suffering from an overabundance of Torporalls?”

He smiled a bit at the memory. Luna had come across him in Myrtle’s bathroom about a week before  _ that _ confrontation with Harry. She had explained that Torporalls, similar to Wrackspurts, were invisible creatures that floated into peoples ears. However, instead of making their brain fuzzy, they slowly depleted one’s zeal for life. It made them lose hope. He had rolled his eyes at the time. Even now, he knew how ridiculous her theory was. And yet, she hadn't been wrong about how he was feeling.

“I believe Harry is suffering from the same thing,” she continued. “The sheer number of Torporalls is rather overwhelming. Nothing I’ve tried has been able to get rid of them. Do you think you could maybe talk with Harry? Maybe tell him how you eradicated your infestation.”

Draco scoffed a bit. “Do you think that would help? I doubt he’ll be open to anything I’d have to say right now.”

Luna sighed. “Yes, he’s lashing out a lot, isn’t he? I’m worried they might be close to taking over completely.”

Draco was quiet for a while, staring into the dying flames. “How are we the only ones seeing this? How have none of the professors—”

“We’re all affected a bit, I think. The castle was overrun with Torporalls for the longest time after the battle. Everyone’s distracted by their own pain or seeing what they want to see. You and I are only noticing it because we’ve come out on the other side. And we care so much for Harry. So will you talk to him?”

“Of course,” he whispered without hesitation. “I’d do anything for him.”

***

December brought along with it the usual frigid temperatures and snow. The first real snowfall of the term was always an event. Classes were dismissed early. Hot cocoa and spiced apple cider were brought up from the kitchens. Inevitably, a snowball fight would break out while many students spent the day sledging. This year was no different. However, there was a cleansing quality to the snow on the grounds. The world was blanketed in bright white. Sounds were muted. It was as though the last six months of mourning and grief were cleared away. Christmas and end of term exams were fast approaching. There had been so much stress and sadness associated with the time of year that when the snow finally came, it unleashed a desire within the entire student body to just let go, especially among the seventh and eighth years. And for one day, one glorious day, no one was sad. No one was alone.

No one, that was, except for Harry. It was too much. The landscape was too pristine. Too quiet. Too muted. Too much like being in that place, the in-between place, what he saw as King’s Cross Station with Dumbledore after…after he had died. While he was dead. He needed something to distract him.

Someone had arranged a pickup game of Quidditch. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, especially since the eighth years weren’t allowed to play for their house teams. He hadn’t planned on joining in, but Ginny had begged, so he went.

Once he was up in the air, high above the pitch, he finally allowed himself to breathe. He no longer felt the same rush that usually accompanied flying, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He didn’t care about much of anything these days. The highs he sometimes felt had begun to die out quickly. The only reason he ever left his room was to prevent people from asking questions. Luna and Malfoy—of all people—seemed to know he was a bit off. It was one thing for Luna to hang around him a bit more frequently than she used to, but nothing about Malfoy’s attention made sense.

The only thing that made sense about Malfoy was that the young man made him feel something. Harry felt elated, high even, whenever he could wheedle a reaction out of the man. Lately, however, Malfoy didn’t so much as sneer in his direction. It made him feel frustrated: he wanted, no, needed a reaction. It was the only thing keeping him from cutting any deeper.

If he were honest with himself, he was getting rather scared. The shallow cuts were no longer enough. The sight of blood trickling down his arm or hip helped, it really did, but it wasn’t enough. He was constantly craving more. 

Burning himself on the door handle or on the side of a cauldron in Potions was inconvenient and usually drew unwanted attention, he had learned from experience. It was also only a momentary calm which later bloomed into a painful and irritating blister. He was afraid he would become reckless, and that fear was all-consuming.

His mind drew back to that place he had been with Dumbledore, surrounded in white. He thought about how he should have just gotten on the train. It would be so much easier if he simply didn’t wake up one morning. His continued existence caused his loved ones so much grief. 

He didn’t actually want to die. It was too much effort. Last time, in the forest, he had gone willingly. His parents and Sirius and Lupin were all there waiting for him. It was nice. They had encouraged him and helped him through the most difficult thing he would probably ever have to do. But would they be there again? If he were to end it all intentionally, would they still be waiting for him, or would he end up in a permanent limbo like the shrunken figure Voldemort’s soul had become? Not knowing the answer was what kept him from doing it.

It did not, however, keep him from thinking about death. Most of his waking hours were spent fantasising about flying into a goalpost or walking off one of the moving staircases in the middle of its transition from one place to the next. He thought about casting weak shield charms in Defense Against the Dark Arts or getting on the wrong side of one of Seamus’ notorious exploding cauldrons. He never went through with any of it, but he was tempted.

Now, Harry sat high above the ground under the guise of looking for the Snitch—somewhat mindful of Malfoy who was hovering near the Slytherin goalposts, also on the lookout for the glittering gold ball. In reality, he was trying to calculate the height in which he would need to fall so that even magic couldn’t save him. It wasn’t that he wanted to die. He really didn’t, and if he were being honest, he was afraid of what it would be like. Even though he had done it before, he was afraid this time would be different. That it would hurt more, or that his attempt wouldn’t work and then everyone would know just how hollow he was inside. They would all know that he was a freak.

_ Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had been right all along. If you’re going to do it, you have to do it right. You only get one chance at this. If you fail, like with everything else you do, you’ll prove them right. _

The thought terrified him. He had spent so long trying to tune out his family’s voices, to forget all the vitriol they had spat at him throughout most of his life. And he had been successful for a while. His mind had been consumed by worse things in the last few years. But here, up in the air with nothing to occupy him but he Snitch, it all came crashing back.

Trying to shake off the thoughts, Harry began to circle the pitch in hopes of catching a glint of gold somewhere close. The faster he caught the Snitch, the faster the game would be over and he could go back to his room. Aunt Petunia’s shrill voice rang in his ears and his forearms itched. It wouldn’t stop until he could sever the skin, could see the blood, the life force within him.

He briefly flirted with the idea of cutting himself while in the air, but he knew that would be dangerous. There would be no way to explain it away as carelessness if he were caught. So instead, he tried to lose himself in flying. It had been ages since he had been able to practice the more daring moves. He knew that he probably shouldn’t, but he needed to do something and the Snitch was nowhere to be seen.

He could feel Malfoy’s eyes on him as he practised feints and rolls. He knew that the man had been watching him closely throughout the match, and not just for the purposes of the game. Well, he thought, if the git wanted a show…

Mid feint, he did catch sight of the snitch. He gave chase, dodging and weaving through players and Bludgers. The tiny ball’s flight wasn’t necessarily as perilous as the route he chose to take, but what was life without a little risk?

Harry could feel Draco right on his tail, although the man was clearly taking a more pragmatic approach—typical Slytherin. He grinned, knowing Draco had never once beaten him to the Snitch and not intending for that to change today.

The Snitch dove down close to the ground and headed towards the goal post. Harry quickly followed, broom barely a few yards from the grass as he closed the distance in a burst of speed. A Bludger whizzed past his face, just barely missing him and he found himself wishing he had been just a little bit faster, so it could have collided with his head. That would have been nice. He would be hurt without it looking like his fault. He could have a few quiet days alone in the hospital wing and then be sent back to his room and given instructions to rest.

Just as he was attempting to dismiss the thought, his outstretched hand grasped around the tiny golden Snitch. A startled sound to his left caught his attention. He glanced over to see Malfoy’s eyes widen in frustration and something else he could not name. Malfoy was shouting and pointing ahead of them, then reaching out for Harry.

Harry jerked his head back around in time to see one of the goalposts up close before his left shoulder ploughed into it, knocking him off his broom.

***

Draco lingered outside the shower stalls in the Quidditch locker room. He had disillusioned himself after getting dressed and sat on the low bench listening to the water running in the next stall over. 

Harry had been reckless and distracted during their game. More so than usual. By the way he had been gripping his broom handle, the man had seemed overly distressed. At the end though, it had seemed that Harry had been able to pull his focus back to the game—until he had caught the Snitch in that dangerous dive and ploughed straight into one of the goalposts.

Accidents happened in Quidditch all the time. It was unusual for a game to be played without at least one minor injury, but this one could have been easily prevented. Harry knew better. Harry was a much stronger flier than that. There had been plenty of time for him to swerve or brake, even while distracted. But for some reason, he hadn’t.

When the rest of the players made it to the ground, Harry had been up and walking around, claiming that he was just winded. He had clearly healed his shoulder with a quick spell and insisted he was not concussed. He had promised Ginny he would go to Madam Pomfrey for a muscle-relaxing potion after getting cleaned up, but was otherwise quick to brush off any concern.

Draco wanted to reach out, to pull him aside and ask him what was going on, but as soon as the players accepted his answer, Harry had bolted for the locker room. Draco couldn’t help but notice that Harry was subtly yet furiously scratching at his inner forearm.

Something told him to stay close, to not leave Harry alone. He knew that the man wouldn’t take his presence or any words kindly, but he could just be there, allow himself to be a target for Harry’s rage and antagonism. Maybe, just maybe, it would keep him from doing anything worse. And if not, at least Harry wouldn’t be alone, he would have someone there who could step in if things got too bad. It might ruin any possible chance at a comfortable companionship they might one day share, but he didn’t care. Harry clearly wasn’t doing well. He wasn’t safe. He needed help.

A sharp intake of breath caught Draco’s attention. He listened intently, trying to find something to indicate what was going on in the next stall. A brief image of Harry wanking in the shower slashed before his eyes. He allowed his mind to indulge in the fantasy briefly, the way Harry’s hair would finally appear manageable for once, smoothed down with water, droplets trailing down that broad and lightly muscled chest, eyes shut tight as his hand moved quickly and firmly along his shaft, maybe allowing his thumb to brush the dripping head.

Draco stifled a groan and breathed deeply, trying to shake the image from his mind. He was there to look out for Harry, not to fantasise about him. 

Then suddenly, he saw. The water flowing from the next stall over into the communal drain was slowly being stained crimson. He was instantly transported to sixth year, collapsed in Myrtle’s bathroom, blood pouring from his chest and feeling as though he had been cut open by a thousand knives.

He bolted from his seat and threw open the door to Harry’s stall. Harry stood under the spray of the showerhead with his left arm outstretched. It was covered in a criss-cross pattern of cuts in various states of healing. One long gash was open, freshly cut and slowly but steadily spilling blood onto the white tiled floor, where it was washed towards the drain. His right hand clutched a shard of glass about the length of his palm. The shard glinted wickedly in the light as a lone drop of blood fell onto the floor.

“Harry,” Draco whispered, panic evident in his voice. “What—”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence.

The calm on Harry’s face was quickly replaced with fear and anger, both warring for dominance. Harry muttered a spell that instantly closed the self-inflicted wound; the flesh knit back together easily but left a livid red scar in its wake.

Harry pushed past Draco, refusing to make eye contact, and dressed quickly. Draco reached out gently and tried to grab the man’s arm. “Harry,” he pleaded, “look at me. You’re hurt!”

Harry jerked out of Draco’s grasp, eyes ablaze with anger. “I already fixed my nose on the pitch, Malfoy,” he spat. “Are all former Death Eaters as daft as you?” He hummed before continuing, “Maybe that’s why your side lost to a bunch of kids.”

Draco could feel his anger begin to flare but shoved it back down. Now was not the time to allow his emotions to get the better of him. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, just the way Delia had shown him. Inhale for four seconds, hold for seven, exhale for eight. The sound of the locker room door slamming shut jarred him out of his exercise. Harry had fled. He cursed and ran after him.

Catching up with Harry under the stands of the now-abandoned Quidditch pitch, Draco blocked his path up to the castle. “I wasn’t talking about your nose,” he panted, moving to counter each of Harry’s attempts to push past.

“What,” Harry yelled, “you didn’t ogle me enough earlier, now you’re trying to trap me under the stands? Seeing me starkers wasn’t enough?”

Draco felt the tips of his ears go pink. “I — I wasn’t—” he stammered.

“I thought Slytherins were supposed to be all prim and proper,” Harry continued, “not pervs who barge in on a bloke whilst he’s in the shower.”

“Well excuse me for being concerned,” he countered. “The last time I saw blood running along a tile floor—”

“Fuck you, Malfoy!” Harry spat, bodily shoving Draco back.

Draco gripped Harry’s biceps, steadying himself and trying to get through to Harry’s panicked brain. “Harry, this is serious. Let me take you to go see Pomfrey.”

“I’m fine, Malfoy. Drop it and leave me alone!”

Draco scoffed. “That’s rich. You haven’t seemed like you’ve wanted me to leave you alone during the past few weeks. You’ve been doing everything in your power to seek me out.”

“Only because you’re a right git who deserves it.”

The words stung. Draco had to bite back his initial response. Harry didn’t need him to be hostile. He needed compassion and understanding. Even though Harry had gotten to the crux of all his feelings of insecurity and worthlessness, Draco persisted, drawing on all the words Delia had pressed into his heart over the previous months.

“No, I  _ used _ to be a right git who deserved it. Sometimes I still am, but most of that has changed. We shook hands on the platform, Harry. I told you I was going to leave the past in the past, and I have. I’ve been nothing but civil to you in the last few months and all you are is completely apathetic or desperately trying to start something with me. Please,” he nearly begged, “Harry, tell me what’s going on.”

“What’s it to you?” the man scoffed. “It’s not like you care.”

“You’d be surprised,” Draco almost whispered, doing his best to maintain eye contact.

Harry was frantic, though. Panic bleed out beneath his anger, “That’s hardly an answer.”

Draco wanted to reach out again and touch Harry, embrace him. Make him look at him. Get his attention and engage him in the dialogue they needed to have. Remembering what Delia had told him about the importance of the use of names, openness, and vulnerability, he pressed on. “Harry, why do you keep doing this?”

“Since when do you get to call me ‘Harry’, Malfoy?” he raged. “It’s not like we’re friends.”

“No, you’re right,” he conceded, willing himself to be open. “We’re not friends. I fucked that up pretty badly before first year even started. I couldn’t understand why you rejected me and so I kept lashing out. I was a complete shit to you and your friends. I’ve apologised and you accepted my apology. We’re starting over, so we get to call each other by our given names.”

“I never agreed to that.”

Now Draco was losing his patience. “Tough shit! Now come on, let me take you to the hospital wing.” Draco reached out again, only to have his hand smacked away.

“I told you to fuck off. It was just a Quidditch injury. I healed it. I’m fine. Why don’t we just go back to the beginning of the year and pretend the other doesn’t exist?”

“Harry, I can’t just ignore this. What you’re doing to yourself—”

“What you  _ think _ I’m doing.” Harry cut him off vehemently. “Whatever it is you  _ think _ you saw—”

“I  _ know _ what I saw!” Draco yelled.

The fire in Harry’s eyes sparked the way it had done over the last few weeks whenever he had been successful in getting a rise out of Draco. It was passion. It was feeling.

“I don’t know, Malfoy. Maybe living with the Noseless Creep and his pet snake for so long addled your brains. You’re so traumatised now, you’re seeing things that aren’t there. Or are you just that bored? Are you just that lonely because all your little admirers and cronies fucked off and left you here by yourself? Is Drama Queen Draco that deprived of attention?”

“Harry—” Draco pleaded softly, praying to Merlin and Morgana and Circe herself that he would be able to get through to him.

“All put out now that you can’t go tattle to your father?” Harry continued. “Your father may hear about this, but that murdering shit won’t be able to just throw Galleons at the situation and buy you some friends, again.”

“Harry—” he reached out and grabbed Harry’s hand.

“No! I don’t need your fucking pity!” Harry shoved his hand away with more force than before. “Fight me,” he challenged as he tossed his wand to the ground and raised his fists like a boxer entering the ring. “Come on! Fight me, Malfoy!”

Draco felt tears prick in the corners of his eyes. He remembered being that angry. When so much anger and self-loathing had built up that the only way he had felt it could disperse was through physical violence.

He stepped back, arms raised in supplication. “I’m not going to fight you, Harry.”

“Come on, you coward!”

“No, Harry. I’m not going to fight you.” Draco stood his ground, trying to allow all of his emotions, worries, and fears to show on his face. For once, he was an open book.

Draco could see the cracks starting to form in Harry’s self-erected walls. The anger began to bleed away and the anxiety built to a head. “Why not?” Harry croaked. “Why aren’t you going to fight me? Come on! Scared, Malfoy?”

He would have scoffed at the throwback if his heart wasn’t breaking in two. He had never expected to care so much for Harry. For years, he had tried his very best not to. And now, after he had begun to put his life back together, Harry’s was being torn apart.

“Harry,” he whispered earnestly, “I’m fucking terrified. Why do you need me to fight you?”

Harry’s voice cracked under the weight of all the emotions that were clearly flooding his mind and now finally found purchase as the dam began to break. His eyes were desperate, pleading. “Fight me. Please,” he begged, “just fight me.”

“Why do you need me to fight you, Harry?”

“Because it’s the only time I feel  _ anything _ except for when—” Harry’s hand flew to his mouth as if he could keep the words at bay. 

“Except for when?” Draco asked gently.

There was a long silence. The only sound was the wind whistling through the Quidditch stands. Had Draco not been listening intently, he would have missed Harry’s answer.

“You know when,” the man breathed.

Draco took a tentative step forward. “I do, but I need you to say it.”

“What does it matter? What’s it to you anyway?” Harry demanded, rapidly blinking back tears.

“It matters because I care about you, Harry.”

He half-sob escaped his lips before he could stop it. “You don’t care about me. I’m your arch-nemesis.”

“Wrong on both counts.”

Draco ran a hand down his face. Although he suspected that Pansy and Blaise had known, he had only ever said it aloud to Luna and Delia. He was so used to keeping his emotions close to the chest. He hated admitting it aloud, especially to Harry, but Harry needed this and Draco needed to help Harry understand. So, he took a deep breath and allowed it all out. Let the final barrier fall.

“I care about you a great deal. I always have, actually. So much more than you know. It took me so long to realise, and by the time I did, I was already marked and was sure that my life was over… I never hated you, Harry. Maybe I felt envious and embarrassed. That’s why I always lashed out. I didn’t…I don’t…Fuck, Harry. I — I care about you because you make me feel.”

“Feel what?” Harry asked, something akin to hope sparkling in his eyes.

“The same way you feel about me,” he admitted.

“Not numb?”

“Definitely not numb.”

“That’s not—” Harry began, but Draco cut him off. He gathered Harry’s hands and held them close to his chest. This time, Harry didn’t pull away.

“We’ve always felt strongly about each other. So much more strongly than anyone else. You’re going through so much and your brain is lying to you about it all. It’s only registering the strongest of emotions. I’ve been there. I know.” Draco took a breath and stared deeply into Harry’s eyes, willing him to understand. “I care about you, Harry. So much. I’m not going to fight you. Please, will you come with me? We don’t have to go to Pomfrey, but there is someone I think we should talk to. Please? For me?”

Harry stared at him for a very long time, the wind whipped at his messy overgrown hair. Draco watched the raw pain Harry had clearly been feeling finally spill over, anguish evident in his eyes. Finally, Harry nodded, gripping Draco’s hands as if they were a lifeline. As if he were cast adrift in an endless ocean and Draco was a liferaft. 

Draco let out a breath that he hadn’t realised he had been holding and nodded, gently tugging at Harry’s hands until the man began to walk with him back to the castle. 

Draco knew that he could not be the one to save Harry, but maybe, just maybe, he could help Harry save himself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Ten Years Later**

Draco had known that something had been off since he arrived home that evening. To the outside observer, Harry’s mumbled ‘I’m just tired’ would have sufficed, but Draco knew better.

The stiff way Harry held his shoulders was a dead giveaway. Throughout dinner and the hours before bed, the tension in his body only grew. Harry’s hands flexed more than usual and several times Draco had seen him massaging his palms a bit more firmly than necessary.

While Harry had been in the shower, Draco surreptitiously checked the potions cabinet to ensure Harry had in fact been taking his daily dose. Delia had prescribed Harry a potion for anxiety and depression very early in his treatment with her. He had been resistant at first, but after seeing the results and speaking to Neville, who had been taking the same potion, his fears had been somewhat assuaged. 

Harry had worried that, like with some Muggle medications for anxiety, he would feel like a zombie, completely numb and anaesthetised to the world around him. But Delia had made the right call. The potion still allowed him to feel everything, but it took the edge off. It added a slight buffer, enough so that he was able to take a step back from situations that used to fill him with anxiety and just breathe. There were still bad days, just nowhere near as many. He knew that Harry had hoped to one day no longer need the potion, but after several attempts, he and Delia had decided on a long-term regimen that was working well for him.

Harry had taken his potion that morning, but clearly his mind was in turmoil. Draco sat on the lid of the toilet and kept Harry company as he took a shower, under the guise of bringing him a warm towel fresh from the drier. Harry was safe. Although Harry had not acted on his desires to self-harm in almost eight years, out of caution they still kept nothing sharp in the bathroom. However, he knew from experience that whenever Harry got like this, he found Draco’s presence calming.

It wasn’t until they were curled up in bed together, Draco on the verge of falling asleep, that it hit.

Harry curled in on himself in an almost extreme foetal position and began to scratch his legs furiously. As Draco shifted, blinking himself awake, Harry murmured a hasty apology, blaming the itch on a bug bite. He stilled for a moment but soon began again in earnest, this time moving to his forearms and scalp.

Draco sat up in the dark, knowing better than to flick on a lamp, and gently grasped Harry’s wrists, pulling the man up to sit in between his legs and lacing their fingers together.

“Shh,” he murmured. “You’re panicking, Harry. Breathe with me.”

He took a deep breath on a four-count, held it for seven, and exhaled for eight. 

Harry shook his head and attempted to wrench a hand free so he could scratch. His breath was shallow and rapid. He shook with anxiety and the desire to do something physical, something violent towards himself, to prove to himself that he was alive.

That was something they had spoken about extensively after getting together. Draco hadn't been able to understand how Harry would be calmed by the sight of his own blood, and he probably never would completely. However, he now knew that what Harry needed, what he craved, was proof of life. 

He shifted Harry against his chest, bringing Harry’s head to rest right above his heart and taking his hands in one of his own. He continued to breathe evenly: four, seven, eight. Eventually, Harry began to relax a little, to breathe more deeply, not exactly in rhythm, but close. His fingers were no longer straining to claw at his flesh. Letting go, Draco began to gently card one hand through Harry’s ever-riotous mop of hair, the other arm wrapping around his middle, holding him close.

“Five things, Harry,” he murmured.

“It’s dark,” Harry huffed.

Draco suppressed a snicker. Their bedroom was almost pitch black and Harry’s glasses were on the nightstand. “Alright, love. Four things you can feel.”

Harry continued to breathe for a moment, then swallowed. “Your hand in my hair. The sheets against my legs. The cold air on my skin. The scar above your heart.”

“Good,” Draco breathed. “Three things you can hear.”

“The ceiling fan. The rain outside. Your heartbeat.”

“Smells?”

“Your lavender and rosemary shampoo and the flowery laundry soap.”

“And now taste?”

Harry sighed, sinking further into his embrace, “Toothpaste.”

“Good,” Draco breathed, holding Harry impossibly tighter.

“I’m alive,” Harry whispered into the night. “I’m alive and I’m here at home with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Remember to leave some love for the creator if you can! Come reblog this work and view others from this fest [HERE](https://hd-hurtfest.tumblr.com/) on the H/D Hurt!Fest tumblr page!


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